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Theory Quotes

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Theory Quotes

“The notion that a society could be regulated entirely by market forces is a utopian fantasy: an impossible dream generated by imagining what the world would be like if everyone's behavior was utterly consistent with some abstract moral ideal-in this case, economic theories that assume all human action is based on calculating, systematic, (but scrupulously law-abiding), greed.”

“The Western approach to reality is mostly through theory, and theory begins by denying reality - to talk about reality, to go around reality, to catch anything that attracts our sense-intellect and abstract it away from reality itself. Thus philosophy begins by saying that the outside world is not a basic fact, that its existence can be doubted and that every proposition in which the reality of the outside world is affirmed is not an evident proposition but one that needs to be divided, dissected and analyzed. It is to stand consciously aside and try to square a circle.”

World Needs Trying Philosophy Facts Reality Existence Theory Approach Western Intellect Circles Abstract Divided Squares Evident Propositions Doubted Outside World

Author:Bruce Lee

“It is a mistake to think of these men as visionary dreamers, playing around at Philadelphia with abstract conceptions of political theory, pulling a whole scheme of government out of the air like a rabbit out of a hat. True, many of them had read and studied enough about the science of politics to put the average statesman of today to shame. But political science was to them an extremely practical topic of discussion, dealing with the extremely practical business of running a government--not, as today, a branch of higher learning reserved for the use of graduate students.”

Source: 55 Men, Story of Constitution

“Whatever their limitations, Freud and Marx developed complex and subtle theories of human nature grounded in their observation of individual and social behavior. The crackpot rationalism of free-market economics merely relies on an abstract model of how people "must" behave.”

“Quantum physics is no longer an abstract theory for specialists. We must now absolutely include it in our education and also in our culture.”

Culture Theory Physics Abstract Quantum Quantum Physics Specialists

Author:Claude Cohen-Tannoudji

“You can keep counting forever. The answer is infinity. But, quite frankly, I don't think I ever liked it. I always found something repulsive about it. I prefer finite mathematics much more than infinite mathematics. I think that it is much more natural, much more appealing and the theory is much more beautiful. It is very concrete. It is something that you can touch and something you can feel and something to relate to. Infinity mathematics, to me, is something that is meaningless, because it is abstract nonsense.”

Thinking Feels Beautiful Science Found Natural Answers Forever Theory Infinite Mathematics Relate Abstract Nonsense Infinity Meaningless Concrete Finite Counting

Author:Doron Zeilberger

“What we grieve for is not the loss of a grand vision, but rather the loss of common things, events and gestures.... ordinariness is the most precious thing we struggle for, what the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto fought for. Not noble causes or abstract theories. But the right to go on living with a sense of purpose and a sense of self-worth--an ordinary life.”

“Freedom is not merely a word or an abstract theory, but the most effective instrument for advancing the welfare of man.”

Men Theory Instruments Welfare Abstract Advancing

Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961

“To give the theory plenty of 'rope' and see if it hangs itself eventually is better tactics than to choke it off at the outset b abstract accusations of self-contradiction”

Ifs Giving Self Truth Theory Plenty Abstract Contradiction Rope Tactics Choke Accusation

Author:William James

“One thus sees that a new kind of theory is needed which drops these basic commitments and at most recovers some essential features of the older theories as abstract forms derived from a deeper reality in which what prevails in unbroken wholeness.”

Kind Reality Form Theory Needed Essentials Commitment Deeper Features Abstract Wholeness Unbroken

Book:Wholeness and the Implicate Order

Source: Wholeness and the Implicate Order

“Thus even supposedly unadulterated facts of observation already are interfused with all sorts of conceptual pictures, model concepts, theories or whatever expression you choose. The choice is not whether to remain in the field of data or to theorize; the choice is only between models that are more or less abstract, generalized, near or more remote from direct observation, more or less suitable to represent observed phenomena.”

Facts Choices Fields Expression Theory Models Concepts Direct Observation Data Abstract You Choose Suitable

Author:Ludwig von Bertalanffy

“Becoming a father made me a lot more sentimental than I ever was before. I never cried at movies before I became a parent. I feel music more intensely. I think of my political ideas as ideas about how I want to interact with other human beings as opposed to abstract theories about how the world should be.”

Thinking World Want Feels Should Humans Made Ideas Political Father Parent Human Beings Theory Becoming Abstract Cried Sentimental Becoming A Father

Author:Boots Riley

“Obama's attitude toward the rule of law is apparent in the words he used to describe what he is looking for in a nominee to replace Justice David Souter. He wants 'someone who understands justice is not just about some abstract legal theory,' he said, but someone who has 'empathy.' In other words, judges should decide cases so that the right people win, not according to the rule of law.”

People Want Should Said Law Used Winning Justice Attitude Cases Judging Theory Empathy Abstract Rule Of Law

Author:Michael Barone

“The word of the Lord never comes to us as an opinion, no attempt is made to support it by argument, it comes as a definite, abstract statement of fact. So it is from the first words...to the last, the works of the Father are declared as facts, not theories.”

Firsts Made Facts Lasts Father Lord Opinion Support Theory Argument Statements Abstract Definite

Author:Anthony W. Ivins

“It is rational to choose the right means to your ends to develop very elegant abstract formal theories of rational choice, and then turn these into what look like moral theories. Philosophers tend to be ravished by the formal beauty of such theories, and they don't pay much attention to the fact that our human limitations make them pretty useless in practice, while the simple point about instrumental reasoning is too shallow to be of much real moral interest.”

Humans Looks Mean Real Ends Facts Turns Choices Interest Simple Pay Attention Moral Practice Theory Philosopher Rational Limitation Useless Abstract Reasoning Formal Shallow Elegant

Author:Allen W. Wood